June 22,2024

last update: 2024-11-19

I’ve been getting into addicted to Coffee since last year. Currently, I’m at 4 shots of espresso per day right now.

Coffee has always had a distinct place in my life, My grandfather is a coffee farmer and merchant and My Earliest memory of coffee is not one of fine roasted coffee but of coffee fruits stored in jute sacks kept for 4 days in my grandfather’s godown. It’s a strong fruity smell accompanied by the smell of jute fibers floating in the air. After a critical volume of these fruits are collected, they go into massive machines that pulp them and separate the bean.

My brother and I used to spend our evenings tossing the drying coffee beans in the ground. It used to be a fun activity. Now that I think about it, we were just duped into doing free labour.

I rarely had coffee on a daily basis even when I lived with my grandparents. There was a time when we used to hand roast coffee with barrels that are hand spun over fire to roast evenly and then ground at a nearby “grounding machine” shop. Our place used to be full of these. The coffee my grandmother makes is very straightforward. boil water -> add ground coffee in it -> filter the water -> add milk.

This is how she still makes it and my how my grandfather likes coffee.

It has a very strong burnt taste, but very diluted compared to an espresso.

But I like the originality of that taste.

Types of Coffee

There are too many classifications of coffee, based on the size of the plant, type of the plant, type of soil, type of roast, type of making I’ll cover some of them here

Based on roast

• Dark roast
• Medium roast
• light roast

Unintuitively,

Dark roast has less caffeine but is more bitter.

Medium roast has max caffeine and very balanced.

Light roast is less bitter and feels not strong.

Type of Coffee plant

• Arabica, beans are more flat and oval. more oily. is generally considered “higher quality” for some definitions of “higher quality”

• Robusta, beans are stouter. have nutty taste. Very strong taste when drank without adding milk.

This is only at the highest level, there are finer details as to the type of plant.

Based on my recollection of my grandfather’s coffee farmer days. Robusta is what we used to grow. Arabica grows at a higher elevation than ours.

Coffee brewing styles

Coffee is brewed in so many different styles globally. apart from the above said homemade way my grandmother does.

Espresso

Espresso is a french coffee brewing style where boiling water is forced through finely ground coffee beans. The result is a very concentrated coffee extract.

Espresso machine

Lamarzaco is an automatic industry grade coffee making machine that makes smooth coffees for my taste. I like how consistent the espresso is everytime.

Aeropress

This is also a French style coffee maker where hot water is passed through finely ground coffee. But, there is a plunger that pushes water against a coffee puck. This is a very manual method. I like how the resulting espresso is very balanced.

Aeropress coffee making competitions are well known around the world, among coffee enthusiasts

Moka Coffee maker

This is an italian stovetop coffee making style. Where steam passes through fine-grained coffee to make coffee. The coffee is slightly thick because of the ground coffee mixing with the steam. takes a while to make it over stove top.

I like the texture of the resulting coffee although with dark roasted coffee the bitterness is overwhelming.

Cappuccino

Cappuccino is a equal parts espresso, milk and milk foam. I generally don’t like cappuccino as much because if I leave it for more than a couple minute the foam starts popping and it trips my typophobia. But it is generally easy to make, just foam more with the foam wand and don’t spin the milk as much.

Macchiato

This is very similar to a flat white (i.e. espresso with steamed milk) but only half a shot of milk to a shot of espresso. Not a fan

Flat white

This is my go to when I don’t mind drawing as much. Its equal parts espresso and steamed milk. the result is not artistic but gets me a coffee that is not bitter

Latte

Latte is also an espresso with milk that’s does not have as much foam as cappuccino. latte has slightly more milk than milk foam.

I make my latte with 2 shots of espresso and no sugar.

While I’m working on upping my latte art game, so far I’ve been able to get fairly decent ferns and hearts